Manny Ramirez probably isn’t available as a pinch-hitter during this weekend’s series with Arizona, Joe Torre told reporters today, but the Dodgers continue planning to play a man down rather than commit to placing him on the disabled list. Xavier Paul was set to hit leadoff tonight for Albuquerque.

Scroll down this Baseball America prospect report to see how many Dodger farmhands have been put on the minor-leagues’ seven-day disabled list. I wonder if anyone has ever thought about reducing the minimum stay on the major-league disabled list by a few days, say to 11. That would still be long enough to fulfill its purpose, but give clubs fewer instances of having to carry an injured player.

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Earlier this week, AZ Snakepit was trying to determine the Diamondbacks’ Loss of the Year (yes, we know it’s only midseason), and the Dodgers provided two of the seven candidates. The May 31 balk-off finished a close second to a June 28 collapse against the Cardinals.

AZ Snakepit also says that Arizona will have played 42 consecutive games against teams with winning records by the end of this weekend’s series.

From the Dodger press notes: “Spanish-language broadcast engineer Mike Noto worked his 2,634th consecutive game on Wednesday and earlier this week surpassed Cal Ripken’s consecutive games streak (2,632). Noto is now in his 20th season and has missed just one game during that time, when he worked a Stanley Cup Finals game for the Kings in 1993. However, Noto has a way to go to catch the Hall of Famer in his booth, Jaime Jarrin, who once called close to 4,000 consecutive games spanning 22 seasons.”

Also from the press notes: “The Dodgers have signed left-handed pitcher Adam Dedeaux to a minor league contract and he’ll start his career in the Arizona League. Adam is the grandson of former Dodger Rod Dedeaux (1935), who went on to become the winningest coach in college baseball history while at USC.”